Marina straightened her arm, forcing the bone to set back into place. Theclickof her elbow reconnecting echoed up her arm and into her jaw.
She ground the soles of her heels into the floor as Acacius’s figure blurred. Her body tensed, bracing for the worst as he materialized in front of her, his hand lunging once more for her throat.
She took a step back, her thighs meeting a stool under the bar top, and curled the fingers of her hand into a fist. Pinpricks of darkness fabricated above Acacius and dropped on him like small leeches, sticking to the tops of his shoulders.
He halted, his attention shifting to his torso as he attempted to peel off the slithering manifestations of her Night.
She ripped up the stool and threw it at him.
The furniture collided with his outstretched hand, busting into smithereens. Chips of wood flew about, and he advanced toward her, a predatory twist still in his golden eyes. The shadowy leeches clawed up his neck and over his cheek. A trail of blood stained the pale skin of his chin. Another stream painted the arc of his throat, disappearing under the collar of his shirt. They festered and ate into his flesh, and yet, he didn’t seem to care.
Marina jutted out her jaw in frustration and shot her hand up. Black smoke coiled from her palm where a thick spear formed and lunged into Acacius’s abdomen.
His lips split in a vicious smirk that was all teeth as he pushed against her pitch-black weapon. It carved through his gut and penetrated out the other side of him. He didn’t so much as hunch over or pause to rip it out. The bastard continued walking until the weapon was completely through him. Not a glint of pain or fear, only the wicked gleam of a monster.
Fucking maniac.
Marina’s tailbone pressed against the edge of the bar, her heart jumping wildly in her throat.
Let him get close.
He stopped in front of her, cocking his head. One of the shadowy parasites crawled up his face and obscured his right eye.
Marina swallowed, her pride controlling every muscle in her expression. Like hell he would see her fear.
Let him think he’s won.
“Oh, Rina.” He chuckled out a low rumble, planting his palm on the bar’s surface behind her and caging her in. His lips brushed her cheek, and she suppressed a shiver up her spine. “You’ll have to do much better than this.”
She knew that. Acacius was a five-thousand-year-old god. One of the first in existence. If she wished to beat him, she would need to match his Chaos, destroy him, just as she did with all the others before him who stood against her.
But you want him to bring you pain.
The thought whispered in the back of her mind.
It was a sadistic, self-deprecating desire to feel any other form of pain, to replace the ache burrowed in her chest, prying deeper with each breath, like a splinter lodged in her ribcage. An ache that had plagued her since Father’s death.
Acacius tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. His delicate touch pricked her cheek, and she had to push the urge down to bite his fucking fingers off. “I have so many ways I intend to make you suffer,” he murmured.
She held her blank stare over his shoulder at a couple clutching onto each other, eyes wide, lips bruised. The straps of the goddess’s dress hung off her shoulders, baring her cleavage, and the man’s trousers were undone. This lounge was full of deities just like the two of them, occupied in their own pleasures, andgods, how she wished to be one of them at the moment. Lost to the world, numb and chasing vices to staunch the stretching void disconnecting the chambers of her heart.
It would be easier if you just gave up.
Acacius was an opportunity. A way to end her suffering. And she could let him do it—inflict whatever horrendous torture he had in store for her. Because whatever fire that pushed her to rise and keep going throughout the decades of her life no longer burned.
She did not care what he did?—
You made a promise.
The moment came to her, faint, like a momentary glimpse of light. Enough to inject a small dose of vitality in her, pushing her to move and finish what she started.
She grabbed Acacius by the collar of his shirt and pulled herself into his chest. “You were a fool to ever trust me.”
As close as you can get.
His expression hardened, straightening the curl to his mouth.
He squeezed her lips between his thumb and index finger like a fish. His fingerprints blotted her skin, breaking the veins beneath.
